Virus targets

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Why bother with history ... I mean there's no way you can prove that anything you say is right. Which way did it really happen ... both seem plausible ... but you'll never know for sure, so forget that shit. Unless history is accurate it is useless, and history is not accurate ... thus history is useless.

[worker201]

Why bother with history ... I mean there's no way you can prove that anything you say is right. Which way did it really happen ... both seem plausible ... but you'll never know for sure, so forget that shit. Unless history is accurate it is useless, and history is not accurate ... thus history is useless.

Agreed.
However, for a country that has nuclear weapons, it is pretty damn important to know when to use them and when not to use them.  Since it has only happened once before, it would be kinda nice to know whether that was the right choice or not.  Numerous members of the current administration have said publicly that they would never rule out the use of nuclear weapons in any military campaign.  Which means that now more than ever it is important to have some sort of rubric that defines when it is okay to use the damn things.  And some sort of history is a big part of that.  So even if history is useless, we have a use for it.

[piratePenguin]

Killing innocent people is bad. Killing guilty people is good.

So, drop an atomic bomb when it's the best solution to (a) killing the least amount of innocent people while (b) killing the most amount of guilty people.

Or that's close enough to what way I'd go about sorting it out.

Every man responsible for those two atomic bombs simply was not thinking about the innocent people.

When you get 100 million Nazis in a few consecutive counties, call me.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

Use logic and reason instead ... those little things everyone has forgotten about or twisted into something far from what they should be. It's never ok to use nuclear weapons for many many many reasons ... radiaton, mass death and destruction, mutations, contamination of food and water sources, tons of money wasted cleaning up the shit. War is never ok either, but hey can you stop it ? Can you convince everyone to put down their weapons and stop the madness ? Do you care to ? I don't, they made their own bed, now they will sleep in it.

P.S. One of my theories (one of the wierder ones) on this is as follows:

All people on this planet are guilty of the acts anyone commits ... collective guilt. If your neighbor commits a crime you and everyone else on this planet is as guilty of it as the neighbor himself. Why ? Because you allow it to happen ... you don't stop it ... you don't prevent it ... you live with it

Also note that at times I seem to contradict myself ... well, you're right I do, because I don't always express my personal point of view in what I say ... just making an argument, seeing if it holds water, if it does, keep it ... if not, discard it

[GenuineAdvantage]

But like I said, conjecture of intent aside, no kind of historical record outside of a tinfoil hat club will deny that Japan was not surrendering. And with that said, if you think that an invasion by US forces into Japan would have not caused several times the deaths of civilians than the two bombs, I think you'd be wrong, because the regular people just did as they were told for the most part. And appearently that's what the people who decided to deploy them took into account also. And I seriously doubt it was purely a logical decision either. In war things often aren't.

And warm fuzzies never saved anyone from a determined onslaught. Yeah, it's your right to choose that philosophy as your only reaction to an attack. Maybe it's a humane way to accept your  maiming or your destruction. But if you ask me, it's wrong to impose that philosophy on others.

[H_TeXMeX_H]

I'm not imosing anything on anyone ... were you talking to me ? Far from it, I'm just thowing arguments out there ... I'm not being forceful am I ? ... You must listen to what I say, I am absolutely right, you have no right ot question me or what I say, you will obey !

It's interesting, if you tell something to someone early and often enough you can get them to fight for it as if they came up with it themselves ... even though I think Aristotle is for the most part an idiot in the scientific field ... this was one of his most successful rhetorical theories (he was much better at rhetoric than at science). Get people to convince themselves that what you say is true and they will fight for it as if they came with the idea themselves.

[GenuineAdvantage]

I was also throwing arguments out there. Maybe one day I will believe that nothing is worth fighting for, but I'm not that much of a free thinker atm. Maybe I will be when I'm dead or a veggie.

[pofnlice]

OK, then I'll sum it up as simple as I see it.

A bomb that would kill 100,000 people and end a war...for sure.It's not goin to get the bulk of opposing forces, but it will guarantee and end to attrocities.

An air, land and sea war that will claim 100,000,000 lives and take a decade to resolve.

It seems obvious to me which abomination I would choose.

[worker201]

Let's divorce this discussion from WW2 for a moment and be purely hypothetical.

Your conclusion is the only logical resolution, given that your numbers are correct.  But how reliable are those numbers?  And what other considerations besides the pure numbers are you not considering?  Remember that purely utilitarian arguments tend to be cold and viscious and unpopular.

[pofnlice]

Ok then, would you rather I kill your father...or your whole family? Maybe I worded that wrong...You are in a position wherre you can end major problems, there are only 2 decisions. 1 - Your Father has to die and all will be right with the world...Option 2, your whole family will die. To make no decision means option 2 auto happens. To stall makes option 2 happen, to attempt to come up with any other otion, causes option 2 to happen.

Is that divorced.

I hate to sound Star Treki about it...

In dicisions of this nature, you have to weigh the needs of many over the needs of the few. Or in this case, the losses of life. You can include the damage in money as well as loss of human life, either way the "quick method wins. As in the WWII analogy, 2 cities VS an entire set of islands and any sub islands.

BUT the long term, what about radiation and contamination and mutation and what ever other blahblations you can think of...It's hard when you pick the wrong side, tough it's a direct repercussion of a previous decision they made.

[worker201]

Your hypothetical scenario is just a little bit too "you must decide right fucking now" to be educational.  By the time I finished pissing my pants, it would be too late.  No choices made under that kind of pressure can be logical.  They are either instinctual or irrational.

Fine, let's just not be hypothetical.  I'm somewhat certain that the Japanese had no intention of fighting to the last man.  I'm also extremely certain that the Japanese didn't have the economic resources to continue fighting to the last man (Japanese manufacturing was already stunted, and would have ground to a halt after a couple weeks of bombing raids from Okinawa - while the US was churning out 40 planes a day, and was ready to increase production).  And they were negotiating surrender, I'll post quotes and sources later this week.  If these 3 points are true, then the 10,000 < 100,000,000 doesn't hold water.  You see what I'm saying?

(of course I'm no historian, and neither are you)

(dammit, I wish heatedbates was open, I hate doing this here)

[pofnlice]

I agree, we should hold this for when Kev decides which way to go with it...